Archive for the ‘copyright’ Category

YouTube, said it will block all music videos to British users after it was unable to reach a rights deal with the main songwriters’ collection society.

The world’s largest video sharing site said PRS for Music, a British collection society that collects royalties on behalf of nearly 50,000 composers, was asking it to pay “many, many times” more than the previous licensing agreement that has expired.
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By Yinka Adegoke
Reuters

“The costs are simply prohibitive for us — under PRS’s proposed terms, we would lose significant amounts of money with every playback,” the company said in a blog on Monday.

The move is the latest sign of the tension between YouTube and the music industry and also indicates the video site’s resolve to keep operating costs under control as it strives to generate meaningful profits for Google.

YouTube said PRS was also unclear about which songs are included in the renewed license.

“We’ve been talking to them for a long time and we’re still talking to them,” said Patrick Walker, YouTube director of video partnerships for Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Walker described it as a “painful decision.”

But PRS disputed YouTube’s version of events and said it was caught by surprise by the announcement in the middle of ongoing negotiations.

“We were shocked and disappointed to receive a call late this afternoon informing us of Google’s drastic action,” said PRS for Music Chief Executive Steve Porter.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Tuesday signaled a shift in U.S. dealings with China, with the State Department poised to take charge after the Treasury Department’s leading role during the Bush administration’s final years.

Mrs. Clinton said the economy-focused approach to China that was spearheaded by Bush administration Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. must give way to a “broader agenda.”

“We need a comprehensive dialogue with China. The strategic dialogue that was begun in the Bush administration turned into an economic dialogue,” she told reporters in her first briefing at the State Department since taking office last week. “That’s a very important aspect of our relationship with China, but it’s not the only aspect of our relationship.”

Washington claimed a tactical victory in its intellectual property case against China, but it is losing the war.

By Tina Wang
Forbes

In its efforts to get China to curb piracy, the United States claims that it now has the World Trade Organization on its side. But the proclamation of victory is empty or premature, or both.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said Monday that the WTO had ruled in its favor, judging that in certain respects, China’s policing of pirated goods constitutes a breach of its treaty obligations. But the WTO actually demurred on the segment of the U.S. complaint that contained the most bite: that China does not provide enough criminal sanction against counterfeiters.

China on Tuesday expressed regret over a World Trade Organisation ruling that backed the United States in a copyright protection dispute, but pledged to cooperate with other countries on the issue.

“As we continually strengthen domestic intellectual property rights, we will continue to promote international exchanges and cooperation on IPR and promote the healthy development of global trade relations,” commerce ministry spokesman Yao Jian said in a statement.

The statement on the ministry’s website was the first Chinese reaction to the WTO’s Monday ruling in the case, in which the US challenged what it called shortcomings in patent protection for imported products in China, as well as in Chinese copyright law.